Denver is about to get a sharp reminder that spring in Colorado comes with an asterisk. After days of comfortable warmth in the 60s and 70s, a fast-moving cold front will barrel into northeast Colorado on Thursday night, dragging temperatures down by as much as 40 degrees in roughly 24 hours and bringing snow back to the Front Range by Friday morning.
The National Weather Service’s Denver/Boulder forecast office is calling for Friday highs only in the upper 30s to low 40s across the metro area, followed by a hard freeze Friday night with lows plunging into the upper teens to mid-20s. That kind of cold is enough to burst unprotected pipes, kill tender garden plants, and catch anyone who has already packed away their winter coat off guard.
Snow totals: modest for the city, heavier on the Palmer Divide
Most of the Denver metro and the I-25 corridor should see a dusting to 2 inches of snow, according to the NWS Hazardous Weather Outlook. The Palmer Divide, the band of higher terrain stretching between Denver and Colorado Springs, faces a heavier swath of 2 to 5 inches. That elevated stretch of I-25 south of the metro could see patchy snow-packed pavement during the Friday evening commute, when the heaviest bursts are expected to coincide with rapidly falling temperatures.
A Freeze Watch is already posted for locations including Golden, as shown on the NWS active-hazards page for the Boulder office, covering Friday evening through Saturday morning. Point forecasts for the western suburbs show explicit snow-shower probabilities for Friday night, reinforcing that the worst of the precipitation will arrive after dark rather than during daytime hours…